


epilogue: the beekeeper

by belovedmuerto



Series: An Experiment in Apathy [13]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dreams, EiE, Gen, John's Gran makes an appearance, M/M, Schmoop, and a small version of Sherlock, but thisisn't really kid!fic, eia, experiment in apathy, experiment in empathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 11:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/609278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A screaming child and a sulking Sherlock--and yet John can't help but feel warm and comfortable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	epilogue: the beekeeper

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, y'all. It's been a helluva good time for me. And Happy Christmas, if you celebrate. Otherwise, Happy Tuesday. 
> 
> Thanks to PrettyArbitrary for the quick beta.

Later on, much later, many years later, John will look back and start to wonder if his nightmares are sometimes prophetic. But he probably won’t ever remember this one, with sand and blood and Sebastian Moran and Jim Moriarty, Sherlock lifeless in his arms and a group of the doctors from Baskerville standing around taking notes and making comments on his abilities to save those he loves. So really, what does it matter?

It’s probably not prophetic, anyway. Probably.

Sherlock is there when he wakes. 

Unlike most times when John comes out of a nightmare, this time he doesn’t thrash into the waking world, he doesn’t gasp or cry out. He wakes in stillness, with a whimper on his lips. 

Sherlock is right there, though, pressed close in the space of the bed, and that is comfort in itself.

John sighs deeply, shifting, trying to relax his body, and he feels Sherlock’s arms tighten around him. He feels Sherlock nuzzle close to his ear and start murmuring, nonsense mostly, words slurred with sleep, soothing nonetheless, and he soon slips back into sleep.

\----

John rushes to get out of Baker St station and across Marylebone Road, headed towards the flat. He knows he’s late; why he thought he’d be able to get clear across town at this time of day in a reasonable amount of time is beyond him. So he hurries. He doesn’t want to disappoint his Gran; he doesn’t want to leave Sherlock alone for too long.

She’s waiting for him outside the flat, standing patiently under the awning of Speedy’s, watching people pass by and smiling to herself. John knows she’s entertaining herself picking random thoughts out of the air and matching them to their owners. It’s something he’d seen her to numerous times in his youth; sometimes she would even share the thoughts with him and let him guess as well.

Harry had never liked that game. She’d never been very good at it, and Harry had always hated things she wasn’t good at.

Gran turns to him as he hurries up, and her smile widens. “John,” she greets him.

“So sorry Gran; getting across town took forever.”

“It’s all right,” she replies, embracing him. As he returns her hug (Gran’s hugs are always the best, and he’ll hoard them even in his sleep), he can tell that it is indeed all right; she’s a patient woman and he’s only a few minutes later than he’d said he would be.

John returns her smile when he pulls back. She looks older in this dream, unlike previous dreams featuring his Gran. Her age seems to match his own, and he wonders at how old he’d thought her to be when he was a child. Adults always seem ancient to children, don’t they?

As soon as he opens the door of 221, the screaming reaches their ears; a child’s screaming. 

“Shit,” John mutters. He exchanges a glance with his grandmother and they both hurry up the seventeen stairs to the flat; John dreads what they will find, and the stairs take forever to mount, in that strange, drawn out way that only ever happens in dreams.

The first thing he notices upon entering the flat is Sherlock. More specifically, his hair. (Sherlock is almost always the first thing John notices in any given situation; he can’t help it.)

His hair, though. If it weren’t for the screaming child in Sherlock’s arms, John would laugh, because SHerlock looks ridiculous. His hair is standing on end, all over the place, as though he’s had his hands clenched in it for hours.

His hands aren’t in his hair now; they’re holding the child who is draped awkwardly over his shoulder, screaming his head off, tears streaming down his face. The whole flat is oppressive with unhappiness; with Sherlock’s, with the child’s. They’re feeding off each other, the child’s screams making Sherlock miserable and unhappy, and his unhappiness making the child even more miserable, his screams even louder.

Bees buzz around their heads; even the buzzing seems unhappy.

The wave of relief that Sherlock feels when he notices John is nearly overwhelming. He crosses the room to John and shoves the child into his arms--John barely gets his arms around the boy before Sherlock lets go of him--and bolts from the room. The slam of his bedroom door sends the little one into fresh hysterics. John exchanges a look with his Gran and adjusts the child in his arms so he has a more firm hold, so the child is more secure. 

John turns to look at his Gran, and she smiles at him, completely unfazed by the boy’s crying. 

“Come here, little one,” she says gently, in her most soothing voice.

The boy looks at her, from between his fingers, his wails momentarily silenced. Then he shakes his head and turns back to John, wrapping his arms around John’s neck and holding on tightly, whimpering, breath heaving, close to hyperventilating.

Gran smiles at John again, and shrugs.

“Thanks,” John says quietly, giving her half a shrug in return.

“I’ll start the kettle then,” Gran says quietly. John nods and she heads off into the kitchen while he paces slowly around the lounge, murmuring nonsense and doing his best to calm the child. 

Eventually, it seems to work; that or the child has simply cried himself out. John moves over to the couch and sits down, settling the boy on his lap. The child looks up at him, his wide, shockingly blue eyes still watery and red-rimmed. John smiles at him and wipes the tears from his cheeks as best he can. 

“All right?” John asks.

The miniature version of his roommate pouts; his little chin quivers. John shushes him and gathers him close in a hug. “It’ll be all right,” he reassures. “I’m here now.” 

Tiny Sherlock settles in as close to John as he can, his runny little nose tucked against John’s shoulder and his sweaty small hand against the back of John’s neck. John sits in silence with him and watches the tiny bees that are buzzing around them; they seem to have calmed down considerably, as the small version of Sherlock has done the same. It feels as though they are curious about John but not frightened of him. They have widened their buzzing little circles to encompass John as well.

His Gran stands in the doorway between kitchen and lounge watching him with a smile.

The kettle clicks off.

Sherlock’s door clicks open. 

John turns his head and smiles against his small friend’s head; when he turns again, Sherlock is perched sideways on the couch next to him, pushing his bare toes under John’s thigh and staring intently at the small version of himself.

“All right?” John asks him.

Sherlock nods. The tiny smile tugging at the corners of his mouth says “yes” and possibly “thank you for helping us feel better”, but his attention is mostly on the child in John’s arms.

The child has shifted; his curls tickle John’s neck, and he’s pretty sure that the Sherlocks are staring at each other.

The bees buzz between the two Sherlocks, back and forth between them, around John. One lands on his shoulder, and though John shouldn’t feel it, he does, like a warm hand resting there. 

John tracks the bees, while they buzz around; he’s starting to be able to identify them. He’s nearly used to their constant presence.

Gran comes over with two cups of tea, sets one down in front of John and hands the other to Sherlock. He takes it from her without glancing her way. She seems wary of the bees, though not afraid of them. They avoid her; John isn’t sure how he knows that’s what they’re doing, but he’s positive of it. 

She smiles down at him before she turns to leave, walking through the door that usually leads from Sherlock’s mind into John’s. John watches her go with a smile. 

The flat is warm and comfortable. _He_ is warm and comfortable. It smells of flowers and the honey that always drips from these walls, and when he turns his nose into the small Sherlock’s hair, a fainter version of a familiar scent. His own, adult version of Sherlock shifts closer.

John smiles, and shuts his eyes, and listens to the buzzing of the bees.

**Author's Note:**

> Next up from me is hopefully either the necromancer!Sherlock AU or the brewmaster!John AU. We'll see which one happens first. (But first, I'm going to be afk for most of January for a winter term class in Rome, so don't expect to see much/anything from me until February.)
> 
> There will be more in this 'verse at some point though. Like I could ever leave these guys alone, amirite?


End file.
